Hello,
I'm having some issues with this problem in ansys. I have a cone with a base radius of .05 meters and an upper radius of .01 meters, and a length of 1 meter. The bottom is fixed and at the top there is an axial tensile load of 10,000 N.

I've tried to solve for the axial deflection of the tip of this 'rod' structure using several different methods, but none of them match my hand calculations (which are correct). At first I tried modeling it as a 3d geometry, but realized that I couldn't assign a force to the end of the cone unless I had a keypoint there, so I found a way to affix a keypoint to the center of the upper circle. It turned out that Ansys did not combine the keypoint and the circle so there was no solution. Then I tried it as 2 keypoints (one at 0,0 and one at 1,0) and had a line connecting them. I used the average radius and calculated the cross sectional area that way for a real constant. That method gave an incorrect solution as well.

Can anyone help me out here? It would be great if we could discuss this in real time via skype, AIM, or some other mode of communication. Thanks.